Dr. Dirk Kohlweyer is a Research Associate in Economic Theory and Computational Economics at the Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.

What connects you to Bielefeld University?

A Short Conference Report on “ACM Hypertext 2023”

In the heart of Rome, a city woven with numerous layers of history and tales, the 34th Association for Computing Machinery's conference on Hypertext and Social Media found its perfect backdrop last September.¹

This is because Rome mirrors the essence of hypertext that is commonly defined as a dynamic web of interconnected information nodes, allowing for unlimited growth and flexible formation of new interconnections over time – just like Wikipedia or the World Wide Web. Rome’s vast wealth of monuments has also been considered in ever-new constellations. Think of ancient monuments such as the Colosseum, the Hippodrome, or the Pantheon that were erected in different periods but today symbolize the ancient heritage of Roma Aeterna. The Middle Ages, Early Modern, and Modern times reshaped the city’s surface and led to new functions and perceptions of older monuments within the now-grown network of architectural heritage. Take the Colosseum, once a grand amphitheater, evolving over centuries to serve new roles from provisional housing in early medieval times to a consecrated martyr site in the 18th century. This development situated the Colosseum into the city’s ensemble of Christian sites.

This notion of flexibility, of contingent possibilities to arrange information and form meaning, summarizes the spirit of the five-day workshop and conference program at the Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max Planck Institute for Art History. Here, hypertext was explored through different lenses: Workshops delved into “Human Factors in Hypertext,” “Narrative and Hypertext,” “Open Challenges in Online Social Networks,” “Web/Comics,” and “Legal Information Retrieval meets Artificial Intelligence.” The conference tracks were dedicated to “Interactive Media: Art and Design,” “Authoring, Reading, Publishing,” “Workflows and Infrastructures,” “Social and Intelligent Media,” and “Reflections and Approaches.” Altogether, this marks a rich tapestry that might seem to lack coherence at first glance.

But far from that, researchers from all over the world discussed hypertext not only as a concept for (digital) infrastructure, network media, or non-linear narratives. Instead, hypertext was broadly addressed as a mode of thinking, as Dene Grigar (Vancouver, USA) emphasized in her workshop keynote on Hypertext Art and editing systems. She illustrated how hypertext literature, video games, and other non-linear art formats are products of thinking in connections. Readers/Users do not precisely know where the multifaceted storytelling brings them. They must find their own paths through the network of possible constellations through interactive navigation. This exploration of uncertainty is not merely a byproduct but a deliberate design, because authors thereby communicate that multiple layers of meaning and possibility exist. The conference participants delved into that experience through a wonderful exhibition Grigar and her team set up in place – Hypertext & Art: A Retrospective of Forms.² It showcased many early hypertext art pieces running on original hardware and digitized works, thus offering a tangible connection to the conference discussions.

The exhibition Hypertext & Art: A Retrospective of Forms, curated by Dene Grigar.

1992/93 hypertext novel and game Uncle Buddy's Phantom Funhouse, running on an Apple Classic II and emulated on a tablet computer. This double setup provided both, an original user experience and a modern adaptation for the touch screen.

Media formats and editing tools beyond the rather linear design of traditional texts were subject to many other presentations, and I can only give a glimpse of the rich conference program here. Among the plethora of ideas and projects, one notable example was SPORE, introduced by Daniel Roßner (Hof), Claus Atzenbeck (Hof), and Sam Brooker (London). This tool offers a canvas for authors to craft stories by arranging information blocks in a visual user interface.³ SPORE reads these spatial constellations and dynamically suggests new story elements, powered by AI technologies. The tool thus supports authors in finding and forming stories in an iterative – in that sense uncertain – process. Frode Hegland (Southampton) also emphasized hypertextual media as tools for thought with a maximum of freedom.⁴ This becomes accelerated in Virtual Reality (VR) environments, which Hegland characterized as “anthropological interfaces.” Drawing inspiration from hypertext pioneer Douglas Engelbart, Hegland characterized hypertext as a tool that augments human intellect – a theme echoed throughout the conference.  As one further example in this context, Serge Bouchardon (Compiègne) elaborated on fictional stories for smartphones that work by messaging and notifications.⁵ These hypertext adaptations create an interactive experience intertwining with our daily digital routines and, in doing so, playing with concepts of time for narratives.

The conference threads wove through themes of freedom, complexity, and multivocality as productive alternatives to rigid structures of information organization. The keynotes⁶ covered various fields of application for that: Harith Alani (Milton Keynes) focused on tracing sources of misinformation and its proliferation through social media in his keynote on Fact-Checks vs Misinformation. Untangling these complex networks becomes possible through knowledge graph technologies. Identifying biases in AI-generated content was one focus of Jill Walker Rettberg’s (Bergen) keynote on Feral Hypertext Redux, whereas Aldo Gangemi (Bologna) addressed Perspectival Modelling of Human-Centred Knowledge with its network-like patterns. Identifying and highlighting intricate patterns was also applied to historical studies. Megan Bushnell (London) elaborated on medieval books as "organized hypertextuality."⁷ Scholarly editions and translations should respect and unveil networks of information inside the books. Christopher Ohge (London) expanded on this notion by presenting a digital edition project on Mary-Anne Rawson’s anti-slavery anthology The Bow in the Cloud.⁸ Jamie Blustein (Halifax, Canada) shifted the spotlight from text to artwork, introducing the H.A.I.K.U. Touch Archive Project that allows scholars to explore elements of artwork and annotate them in space.⁹

Bridging the boundaries of media with hypertext was another popular topic at the conference. Transmedia storytelling combines multiple media in one overarching narrative experience. This moves stories into mixed realities, as Valentina Nisi (Funchal/Lisbon) put it in her workshop keynote, and is being applied in diverse areas such as tourism, history, or museums. Emily Norton (Tampa) brought geographic elements into play by introducing a digital adaptation of James Joyce's Modernist novel Ulysses. It employs hypertext annotations, an interactive map, and wiki technology, to provide contemporary readers with easier access to Joyce’s text.¹⁰

To be sure, the conference’s 2023 edition covered many more hypertext-related issues – more than I can report in detail here. The rich tapestry of paper topics spanned from further applications of VR, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Social Media methods and content analysis, linked (open) data, games, and locative storytelling, to the history of hypertext. My own contribution focused on revisiting scholarly hypertext.¹¹ It argued that hypertext allows (digital) humanities scholars to craft publication formats that transparently communicate epistemic dimensions of their research in terms of multiperspective demonstrations. When hypertext is visualized – thus multimodal or spatial hypertext – this potential is accelerated because the visual representation unveils the non-linear architecture of argumentation, narrative, and (in the case of data-driven research) data interpretation.

Despite the broad range of topics and approaches, I felt at just the right place to present my work, get inspiration from the community, and engage in stimulating discussions. This is in large part due to a warm-welcoming and highly communicative community, which made it easy to connect. United by a common vision of hypertext as a foundational tool for interconnected thinking, we embraced the complexities and contingencies inherent in our work, viewing these notions of uncertainty not as obstacles but as productive pathways to new perspectives and insights.

Let me end with a remarkable story from the history of the conference. It is an anecdote of uncertainty in itself. For the 1991 edition in San Antonio, Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau submitted a paper to present a nascent project they have been working on at the CERN for two years: the World Wide Web. Their paper was rejected and a live demonstration Berners-Lee and Cailliau managed to set up at the venue did not spark much interest. The WWW was deemed too simplistic.¹² Yet, as it would soon blossom into the foundational fabric of our digital world, this story is a vivid reminder that the seeds of transformative ideas often lie in unexpected places.

Dr. Christian Wachter is a research associate at the working area Digital History, Department of History at Bielefeld University.  

Photo Copyrights: Philipp Ottendörfer, imago / Ikon Images / Gary Waters, Universität Bielefeld.

 by Elif Sandal Önal & Andreas Zick

Understanding the role of uncertainty in different political groups' policy support 

"I do not know what war means": Understanding emotional and informational uncertainty in support of the German government's military policies during the war in Ukraine.

Dr. Elif Sandal-Önal is a research associate at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence at Bielefeld University.

Dr. Adhen Benlahlou is a research associate at the Faculty of Business Administration and Economics / Economic Theory and Computational Economics at Bielefeld University.  

What connects you to Bielefeld University?

I've always wanted to bring together my passion for economic models and my wish to apply them as a policy making tool. During my master and doctoral studies, I've gotten into touch with structural econometric models which is an explicit combination of economic theories and statistical models. This method is not limited to the study of objects limited to economics. The discovery of these porosities led me to look for a place where game theory is not limited to one application. Bielefeld University, with its long tradition of interdisciplinarity, was an obvious choice when I looked for a place to conduct a post-doc in line with this desire for openness.

What role does Uncertainty play in your research?

My research lays at the intersection of the economics of networks and the economics of science and innovation. More precisely, how the interactions structure between individuals (researcher, inventors, adopters, etc..) will influence their decisions. Scientific research is uncertain by nature. In a current project, I’m interested by how the PhD advisor's attitude towards uncertainty influences the PhD student's career. This raises an important question in terms of public policy: should we favor young researchers' early exposure to uncertainty? 

To what extent is interdisciplinarity important in your work?

Being interested by economics of science, interdisciplinary research has always been at the core of my work. Indeed, it would be difficult for me to study the interactions between individuals producing knowledge without drawing from the sociology of science, as well as discrete mathematics to better understand the structure of networks (graph theory). As my work also has an empirical dimension, it would be difficult for me to abstract from interactions with computer scientists, for instance when it comes to the creation of relevant databases, but also with statisticians. 

What would you like to accomplish in a Center for Uncertainty Studies?

CeUS is a fertile ground for collaborations with top researchers from a broad spectrum of the social sciences. I would like to contribute to other fields with quantitative approaches that help to distinguish behaviours arising from, but also responding to, uncertainty. In this way, I believe that ways of navigating uncertainty can be more easily detected and studied in different fields. In addition, exchanges with researchers from different disciplines enrich our understanding of the phenomena involved, as well as the range of questions raised.

The first CeUS conference ("Navigating Uncertainty: Preparing Society for the Future") took place in Bielefeld at the beginning of June - which moments were particularly exciting for you? What do you take away?

The first CeUS conference underlined the fact that uncertainty is a subject studied by many disciplines with different points of view. During the various discussions, it became clear that people from different fields, with different terminology, are interested in the same phenomena. This conference illustrated that dialogue between disciplines is entirely possible, which bodes well for future cross-fertilization between disciplines to improve our understanding of uncertainty.  

To sum it up: Do you have specific strategies in your personal or professional life to deal with uncertainty?

For most people, uncertainty is synonymous of unease and insecurity. Recall that research is by definition uncertain, and we never know in advance what our conclusions will be. In order to manage uncertainty in my research, I try to build up a portfolio of more or less uncertain projects to ensure a certain level of production, without being closed to more adventurous projects.

Thank you very much!

Gerrit Bauch is a research associate at the Center for Mathematical Economics at Bielefeld University and a member of CeUS.

Dear Gerrit, what connects you to Bielefeld University?

I've always wanted to bring together my passion for mathematical models and my wish to apply it to real-world applications. During my master studies at Heidelberg University, I've gotten into touch with game and decision theory under uncertainty - for me the perfect mix of mathematics and economic application. After some searching it became clear that Bielefeld University offers the perfect place for this kind of academic prospect. Following in the footprints of Reinhard Selten, especially the Center for Mathematical Economics has ever since become a hub for interdisciplinary researchers who aspire to provide the social sciences with formal mathematical foundations - exactly what I have been looking for.

What role does Uncertainty play in your research?

My research deals with imprecise probabilistic information, also known as "Knightian Uncertainty". You see, there's an important difference between situations where probabilities can be quantified or are unknown: Imagine an urn containing 100 balls, either of red or black color respectively. If, e.g., it is known that exactly 50 balls are black, we can assign probabilities for each draw, granting us access to the apparatus of probability theory. In contrast, if the number of black/red balls is unknown, we can't confidently assign precise probabilities to the outcomes. Hence there could be 0-100 black balls and only one out of 101 Bayesian models describes the correct statistics of the urn in question. We thus rather face ranges for the probability of drawing a black ball.

I'm interested in how people (should) cope with Knightian Uncertainty and their theoretical implications.


To what extent is interdisciplinarity important in your work?

Being based at the Center for Mathematical Economics, interdisciplinary research has always been in the center of my post-master career. This is even true beyond the intersection of mathematics and economics. Some of my research touches the realms of linguistics, explaining robustness properties of formal languages when facing errors in communication. In another project, I have been working on a partnership dissolution mechanism used in joint ventures. Eliciting uncertainty as a sufficient driver for an efficient outcome mitigates the importance of court decisions on the assignment of roles among co-owners.


What would you like to accomplish in a Center for Uncertainty Studies?

CeUS and the MODUS initiative have opened my horizon for further interdisciplinary cooperation with top researchers from other social sciences. More concretely, I wish to contribute to other fields with formal approaches that help to quantify and distinguish different sources of uncertainty. By doing so, I believe that modes of navigating uncertainty can more easily be detected and characterized further across different fields. In addition, talking to researchers from different fields unravels instances of real-world approaches to dealing with uncertainty that have not yet been described in economics, sparking new modeling ideas.
 

The first CeUS conference ("Navigating Uncertainty: Preparing Society for the Future") took place in Bielefeld at the beginning of June - which moments were particularly exciting for you? What do you take away?

The first CeUS conference has stressed that uncertainty is a pervasive topic, relevant to almost every field. It became clear to me that people from many fields follow similar lines of thinking while not yet having been able to combine their thoughts and forces to overcome one of the biggest distresses of our society.

An intriguing idea that especially stood out to me as a decision theorist was a suggestion by Carlo Jäger, the chairman of the Global Climate Forum. Instead of asking politicians for a concrete action to take (such as whether or not to lock-down the country), they can be advised of possible decision rules, describing general qualitative properties of dealing with uncertainty, and asked to pick among those. On that basis, an optimal action to be implemented can be derived.

 
To sum it up: Do you have specific strategies in your personal or professional life to deal with uncertainty?

For many people, uncertainty goes along with a feeling of unease and insecurity. However, we should not forget that uncertainty also offers opportunities. In that sense, I aim to confine uncertainty to the extent that I feel comfortable, but at the same time stay open for positive surprises.  

Thank you very much!


Further info about Gerrit Bauch is available here: https://gbauch.github.io/

Der Deutschlandfunk hat im Rahmen der Sendung „Systemfragen“ unter dem Titel „Vielfachkrisen / Kann Unsicherheit produktiv sein?“ über die vom Bielefelder Center for Uncertainty Studies ausgerichtete Konferenz „Navigating Uncertainty: Preparing Society for the Future“ und die Forschungsinitiative „Modi und Effekte des Navigierens von Unsicherheit in der Gesellschaft“ (MODUS) berichtet. 

„Unsicherheit zu spüren muss […] im Zusammenleben nicht zwingend etwas Negatives bedeuten“, meint Professorin Silke Schwandt. Sie kritisiert, „dass Unsicherheit ganz stark negativ konnotiert ist und es darum geht, Unsicherheit zu vermeiden, zu reduzieren, mindestens einmal zu kontrollieren und aus der Welt zu schaffen […]. Wir würden argumentieren, dass Unsicherheit durchaus positive Effekte in der Gesellschaft haben kann und, dass es uns darum geht, anzuschauen, wie das Entscheidungshandeln oder auch die Modes of Navigating, also die Modi des Navigierens von Unsicherheit auf Akteursebene - und damit meinen wir Individuen als auch Kollektive […] - konstruktive Effekte auf Gesellschaft haben können.“

 Diese Modi bilden den Schwerpunkt der Forschungsinitiative, an der zahlreiche internationale und interdisziplinäre Forscher*innen beteiligt sind. „Der Wirtschaftsmathematiker Manuel Förster hat z.B. mit seinem Team die Auswirkungen von Verunsicherung auf die Verbreitung von Falschinformationen in einem Modell berechnet. Fazit: Wer sich unsicher ist, ist eher bereit, eine Information zu überprüfen, die er oder sie z.B. im Netz findet. […] Hier kann Unsicherheit dazu führen, dass Menschen nicht so leicht auf Fake News hereinfallen.“

Die Wissenschaftlerin Carolina Falcão demgegenüber hat sich an der Rural Federal University of Pernambuco in Brasilien intensiv mit dem Werk des indigenen Menschenrechts- und Umweltaktivisten Ailton Krenak beschäftigt. Falcão meint, „dass die Menschen in Brasilien tendenziell besser mit Unsicherheit und Ungewissheit umgehen können als hier in Europa […].“

Auch Andreas Zick kommt in dem Beitrag zu Wort: „Wir haben festgestellt, dass die Verunsicherung stark zugenommen hat. Verunsicherung, wie sich z.B. ausdrückt in einem Misstrauen gegenüber politischen Entscheidungen […].“ Die Forschenden um den Direktor des Instituts für interdisziplinäre Konflikt- und Gewaltforschung (IKG) haben im Rahmen der letzten Mitte-Studie herausgefunden, dass mehr als jede fünfte Person in Deutschland (repräsentative Stichprobe) sich aktuell einen Führer wünsche, der das Volk zum Wohle aller regiert. „Das sind Ergebnisse in Krisenzeiten“, hält der Forscher im DLF-Interview fest. 

In solchen Krisenzeiten „gilt in Demokratien erstmal das Umschauen nach Expertise, nach Rat, nach Solidarität und Zusammenhalt. Wir haben in den Demokratien lauter Modi des Navigierens, die wir nur nicht nutzen. Das ist etwas, was uns beunruhigt.“

Für Silke Schwandt, deren Kommentar den Radio-Beitrag abschließt, liegt die Kernherausforderung darin, zu verstehen, wo die Verunsicherung liegt, um sie dann vielleicht in eine Zukunftsoffenheit umdeuten zu können. Um noch mehr über die Aktivitäten der Forschungsinitiative zu erfahren, können Interessierte den Beitrag beim Deutschlandfunk nachhören und auch der CeUS Blog begleitet die Forschenden und ihre Arbeit.

CeUS is a knowledge platform for the development of inter- and transdisciplinary "Uncertainty Studies" at Bielefeld University. CeUS documents, connects and presents not only research on "Uncertainty" but also knowledge on this topic in general. It creates a platform for faculties, institutes and research networks that touch the field of Uncertainty Research. In addition to the expansion of existing research foci, new, innovative research ideas are developed.

In the future, this blog will feature news about CeUS events, publications, researchers and activities in the media. The CeUS team welcomes suggestions and comments.